Thomas, with whom she remained close as an adult, later speculated that their father had suffered from syphilis, a disease that Dinesen herself would contract years later. Dinesen later reflected: “It was as if a part of oneself had also died.” Dinesen's brother Dinesen had always been very close to her father, and his suicide was a shock. In 1895 her father, Wilhelm, hung himself. Works in Biographical and Historical ContextĮarly Tragedy Born Karen Christenze Dinesen on April 17, 1885, in Rungsted, Denmark, Dinesen led a happy childhood until tragedy shattered her comfortable existence.
Ernest Hemingway once remarked that the Nobel Prize in Literature he received in 1954 should have been awarded to her. Hailed as a protofeminist by some critics, scorned as a colonialist by others, Dinesen is chiefly regarded as a masterly storyteller. Acclaimed for her poetic prose style, complex characters, and intricate plots, Dinesen was concerned with such themes as the lives and values of aristocrats, the nature of fate and destiny, God and the supernatural, the artist, and the place of women in society. Isak Dinesen is best known for Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and the autobiographical novel Out of Africa (1937).
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